How do I measure the success of my marketing efforts, and what metrics should I be tracking?

The marketing world is ever evolving and changing, therefore it can be difficult to keep up with the different metrics you should be tracking. However, being able to understand and correctly manage your success could be the difference between sinking and thriving.

Marketing isn’t solely related to being creative and original, but also about strategic planning and proper data analysis. Some metrics prove to be more useful than others when measuring the success of your marketing efforts, though. Continue reading our blog to learn more about what metrics you should be tracking to measure the success of your marketing strategies. 

How Can I Track My Social Media Marketing Efforts?

Social media is an extremely important aspect of marketing. It’s important to recognize how your brand or your marketing does on social media. A few ways this can be done is through finding your impressions, follower growth, and engagement rate.

Evaluating Your Impressions

Impressions are the number of users who saw your content. Impressions are calculated by tracking the total number of times your content was displayed on a platform. The higher number of impressions the better, this means your content is being seen by different people multiple times. You’re also able to calculate your overall impressions for all of your content or just a single post.

Tracking Your Follower Growth

Follower Growth is another key social media metric. This metric gives you an idea of how many people resonate with your brand. When tracking your follower growth chart, you’ll either notice many spikes or a more flat line with just one or two growth spikes. In order to calculate your Follower Growth Rate, take the number of followers you gained divided by the number of followers you started with, times 100% (over a specific time period). This time period can be year over year, month to month, etc. 

Follower growth rate can give you a good idea on if you or your client’s business is catching people’s attention and getting a good reach.

Tracking Your Engagement Rate

Engagement rate is the number of users who actually interacted with your post after seeing it. In order to calculate your engagement rate, divide your total number of interactions by the amount of followers you have, and then multiply that final number by 100%. In order to decide whether or not your engagement rate is successful, give yourself benchmarks as a guideline. For example, you could judge your engagement rate based on how your content performs in a given time period or compare your performance against key competitors. 

From this social media metric, you’ll be able to decide whether your marketing efforts are successful or if they need to be changed or altered. 

How Can I Evaluate My Email Marketing Efforts?

Tracking your email marketing performance throughout every campaign is extremely important in measuring your marketing efforts. This is ultimately the way to get to know your audience, build on what emails/advertisements work, remove what doesn’t work, and create a strong strategic plan. 

Tracking Your Click Through Rate

Click Through Rate (CTR) is the ratio of clicks on a link to the number of times the email is shown. This means it shows you how often the people who see your email end up actually clicking it. This metric is extremely important when evaluating if your keywords or emails are performing well. 

In order to calculate CTR, take the number of clicks your email receives and divide it by the number of times your ad is shown. For example, if you had 20 clicks and 200 impressions, your CTR would be 10%. The higher your CTR is, the more successful your emails are. When using CTR, you’re able to gauge what type of emails are doing well and which need to be reworked. 

Evaluating Your Conversion Rate

A Conversion Rate (CVR) records the percentage of users who have completed a desired action. This is by taking the total number of users who complete this desired action and dividing it by the overall side of the audience. Then, that number is converted into a percentage by multiplying it by 100.

CVRs are very effective when comparing and contrasting the performance of different channels. If you’re noticing your CVRs are lower than expected, this means the advertisement/email/channel needs to be reworked. 

Testing Your Email Deliverability

Email deliverability distinguishes emails that made it into the receiver’s inbox versus those that haven’t. There are technical issues, like an unstable connection, that can be responsible for most email delivery issues. Problems with email deliverability can stem from a poor sender score, poor content quality, unclean mailing lists, and more. 

There are multiple different testings that your email must go through. These are: Authentication testing, content testing, and seed list testing. Authentication testing is verifying that your outgoing mail server is correctly configured in order to pass the multiple authentication checks from the service providers. Content testing is analyzing email content against popular spam filters to determine if it’s useful/spam. Lastly, seed list testing takes a small sample of actual email addresses and then uses your marketing emails across different email services. 

Tracking Website and Digital Marketing Metrics

Measuring Your Cost Per Click

Cost Per Click (CPC) is a performance metric that shows the overall value of your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign. You’ll be able to recognize if you’re spending too much on a lead compared to the revenue that you are getting in return. High CPCs could possibly indicate wasted ad spend. It’s important to aim for a low CPC. 

In order to calculate your CPC, divide the total cost of clicks by the total number of clicks your ad received in a specific period of time. This number will then represent the amount that you are spending for a click on a specific campaign. 

How Can I Evaluate My Return On Investment?

Return on Investment (ROI) or Return on Costs is used to measure the profitability of a certain investment and how that investment has performed. When calculating your ROI, take the current value of investment and subtract the cost of investment from that. Afterwards, divide that number by the cost of investment. The current value of investment simply means the money you would obtain from your investment if you were to sell it at that very moment. 

Once acquiring your ROI percentage, you can begin comparing your separate investments in order to recognize which brings you the most profit. From this, you can begin eliminating unnecessary marketing efforts/investments that are not as beneficial as others. You can recognize these unnecessary investments through lower/negative ROIs. 

Utilize Raze Media’s Marketing Services!

Raze Media has a variety of marketing services that ensure the success of your company. These services include: SEO, SEM, PPC, SMS, Email, Social Media Management, Digital Brand Analysis, Data Analytics, and E-commerce. Read more about the digital marketing services Raze Media provides!